Gallops - Bronze Mystic CD

After releasing their debut album, a monstrous slab of dark experimental rock Yours Sincerely Dr. Hardcore in 2012 and at the peak of their sci-fi powers Wrexham’s Gallops soon announced they were no more and broke up in 2013. In 2016, almost three years to the day, they announced their return. “We missed it too much, basically having some time away from the band gave us a fresh perspective and made us realise that Gallops still has life in it. It just needed a nap.”

After awaking from their nap, they have done so revitalised, rejuvenated and driven, creating an album that has stretched their horizons even further and is driven by the propulsive charge of electronic music. “I think the move towards a more electronic sound has been a natural progression for us. These days we tend to be more excited by the possibilities of electronic music than we do by traditional instrumentation.” That said, guitars and drums are far from strangers on the record, but instead they are used to colour and shade around the electronic centerpiece of the record. “We are very interested in marrying the real with the unreal."

After a replacement and a departure, the band are now a three-piece of Mark Huckridge (electronics, guitar, keyboards), Liam Edwards (drums) and Brad Whyte (guitar, noise). Tucked away from anything resembling the music industry, their hometown of Wrexham somehow seems emblematic of the band’s desire to do things on their own terms and operate in their own world. "We enjoy the isolation from any sort of scene.” They say, “It means we can just get on with things and not worry about fitting into anything. It's a very working class town too, which keeps our feet on the ground and gives us a good work ethic.”

Sonically the record matches the band member’s fuller sense of scope and vision; the sputtering electronics, and often-elongated guitar wails, recall the dystopian visions as depicted in the finest 1980s horror and sci-fi films. There are moments of soaring post-rock, humming dark ambience, esoteric offshoots, bubbling electronics and even the odd gargle of industrial-tinged noise. Huckridge moved next to a car park in which the throbbing sub-bass of boy racers has helped inform the rhythmic ideas for the record. And when the writing process begun the band were drummer-less and thus all the drum parts were written by non-drummers."This is very much Gallops MKII. We intend to keep pushing things further and we are already writing ideas for our next record.”